So this is it- 2019 is upon us, the year has spun another circle and brings us once again to a new starting place. What will you do with this clean and fresh place?

For this IS it. The beginning of a new year of our lives, a finite period of time we are gifted with. Maybe this is the year to make your dreams come true!

People in the arts- could this be the year where you measure your success deep within your heart and feel truly happy?

Visual artists- will you take a huge leap forward in expressing the creative work you dream of? Attain the skill or ability to paint the perfect painting you know you have within you, the one that thrills you (and hopefully others) to your very core?

Writers- will you reach deep inside to express the novel or poem that speaks to the soul of an audience, edit it to perfection and then publish your first novel?

Composer, dancer, actor, sculptor, will you bring forth your sparkling creation that moves people to tears?

This is it, this is the year for you to make a giant leap! Put in the time, do the work. organize your obligations and time better so that your creative time is there for you. This is a big challenge for all of us, including me!

Then use that creative time better. Work the practical aspects if the Muse is out to lunch that day. Give yourself totally to the amazing experience when the Muse is there.

Set goals, modest or large; visual yourself meeting them. Put positive energy out to the universe, for the world responds well to the positive!

Do your best, honestly, and you will know you have. One step closer to the dream is a huge one, and time is too precious to waste. The world deserves your beauty in these troubled times, so give yourself to it and craft your talent to its maximum.

All it takes is everything.

Happiest, most successful New Year ever to all of you, and I hope for me too.

I so enjoy painting this beautiful bird in watercolor! This is the fourth one I have created over the past 25 years, and I have reached the point with him, as I often do, of asking

Is It Done?

As you work on a new painting, you become very enmeshed with it, intertwined with its creation, its subject, the process…you can lose almost all objectivity. You can take it to the pinnacle of perfection only to look at it the next painting session and say NOT THERE. And worse yet, you can add a bit more, a little bit here and there and Ugh! It is overdone!!!!! In watercolor this is a special danger, as all water colorists know.

Through research, talking with other artists, and my own ideas, here are some ways you can access if your painting is indeed done.

Take the painting way across the room, walk away, turn around, wait a few minutes and then turn and look at it. You may see it with a different eye, see perfection or see a glaring area of need.

Turn the painting upside down and then repeat the above process. This can help with compositional flaws, dark/light balance problems, color needs.

Take the painting into the bathroom or any area with a decent sized mirror and hold it up to the mirror. You will see it reflected backwards, and be able to look at it with a new objectivity. This can really help.

Put the work across the room, walk away and block out the left side with your hand. Analyze what you see there. Bland? Too busy? Not enough dark, light, detail, etc…? Then do it to the right side. This can help too.

Use your camera to take a pic, then adjust it to a black and white image. Doing this can really help you with color values; you can see where it pops, see where it is boring, see how the dynamics match what you want for your work.

Ask a friend or family member for an opinion of your work. This is really helpful at first, people who care for you will offer their genuine ideas about your painting. Unfortunately after the first 50 times you ask them, it gets old, they get less objective too, this is your thing, ultimately, not theirs.

Set up an alliance with a fellow artist. This is a biggie. You critique for them, they critique for you. Invaluable! Of course you will differ. Of course you may not agree all the time. But a person who knows artistic principles and what you are trying to accomplish and convey with your work can be exceedingly helpful. Be a good art friend to have one.

So there you have it, my best ideas to help you help yourself. I have been through 1 – 5 already, time to bounce this one off of my friends and my artist buddy.

I am a wheel; I like to make things turn.I spin ideas. I love to affect change and movement. Set ideas and actions into motion, spin life forward and dream backward through time.

I can be the horse who pulls the cart; I will work hard and persist with all my strength to move the cart forward. If needed I will bear the weight of many and much upon my back. This is the way that I am built, the way that I am.

I am the cart. I will load up the carrying place, help you load up your things you need to journey with, and ask for help to load up mine. But I will carry my needs and yours whether you help on not. And I must move them all forward to be right for myself.

I am the harness- but may be an uncomfortable one at that! I tug hard, can bind too tightly, and sometimes , most unfortunately, jab those I try to hold together. But I am a tenacious one; will hold on, as hard as I can, to unite together what I am able to unite. To to move the whole rig forward, horse, wheels and all toward better places.To the places where I see dreams coming to fruition, and adventures waiting, dreams to be realized.

It creates a statement, saying I am here- I was here- I imagine this and I see this sight just this way.

Just as a writer overflows with words, a composer fills with song, and a dancer moves to express, an artist creates and shows and meanders through her medium to the rhythm of her soul.

I encourage you to daydream and doodle with a pencil in your hand. Practice and seek and learn to show what you alone want to show. Draw and draw and sketch as much as you can, and when you hit a wall in your need to express, do research from teachers and from all the beautiful creations you can find to see.

Develop an aspiration and practice toward it.

Challenge yourself to try new things.

Add some colors, a marker pen, a watercolor brush to your expressions.

Surely you will find some things you enjoy in art that you will feel good about, and are good at.

And know that you have a lifetime of free lessons and information from me, your twin sister from different mothers, waiting for you to utilize when you wish.

Take your sketchbook camping, take it to work. Leave it by the phone call center, take it to a place where you have to wait.And draw, draw, draw-

Once you have taken off, the more you will seek this fine form of self expression; may it lead you to a journey of enhanced self discovery, and personal celebration of your beautiful self!

Long time ago I was a new mother to a wonderful baby girl. It had taken me some time, but I was finally getting the hang of it, starting to feel like I was getting pretty good at the mother thing. Mother’s Day came along for the first time for me as a mother- and no one acknowledged my great feat.

Hubby was working hard just to keep us in our home; he did not even think of helping baby to give me a token gift. His thinking- you’re not my mother. Other family members were far too busy with their own young children. My own mother was busy taking in her own motherly accolades. So I went off to the grocery store to make my weekly food purchases feeling very sad and sorry for myself. At the exit with my full shopping cart stood the store manager. He had a big bouquet of red roses in his arms, and was stopping each woman as she left the store.

Are you a mother?,he asked. My nod gained me a beautiful red rose and a Happy Mother’s Day. Tears poured down my face. And I smiled the whole way to my car.

Mothers greatest reward is the intense love they are granted for their child. This love is of a unique nature- it is passionate and fierce. It aches and fills your heart to bursting. It gives and forgives, and hopes forever.

Mothers work very hard to care for their children. To provide for them and give them opportunities for success. To introduce them to the world of wonder, even as they try to shield them from it, protect them from all harm. They sacrifice their time, their sleep, their down time, their careers, their all for their children. And this goes on for years and years.

Do we mess up? You bet we do. Mothers are human beings, capable of making every mistake there is to make. My mom made mistakes, I did too. But you can count on one thing for sure- the lady is trying her best to be the best mother she can be. So if the love is there, the child will just have to work it out as we all must as adults. So it goes.

This year I bought three bouquets of roses at the local store, and gave them out to all the mothers who came my way. Happy Mother’s day I told each lady, and they all said it back to me.

Life seems to be an journey between paths lit with bright sunlight, mysterious moonlight, and grey trails of mud and sharp rocks. When you get off the right track, you can sometimes plod on for miles, turned within, not realizing you are off.

Wake up- look at where you are, do you like what you see? Maybe you need to get back into the golden sun, a path where you can walk and breathe and see the hope of the journey.

A place to start is to look at your gifts. Everyone has them. You were born with some inherent talents, bends, predispositions toward skills. They may lie in your natural grace of movement, your way of looking at machines and understanding their functions, your ability to look at wood pieces and see their natural joinings for function or for art.

It may be a yearning to fly, to hear and create music, put together words into tales, or draw the world to share. You have those gifts. If you use them in your life or work or study, your journey will be easier, will bring you more joy. Because when we work at developing a skill that we naturally lean toward the learning is far easier, the potential for excellence far greater than forcing a knowledge that we do not enjoy, do not care about.

art muse

Next, look at external gifts you are given. Wake up- look at the world around you, the sights, the people, the creatures. That bird on the branch is singing for you. Do you even hear him? That brilliant red tree was placed in your sight to savor with your vision. Look at it for goodness sake! The little cat rubbing your ankle wants to give you a gift of its love. The child singing in the yard two houses over is practicing her talent, enjoy her aspiration.

Serendipitous occurrences can be wonderful gifts. Did you ever just find the most beautiful rock, feather, seashell without even trying? Recently as I was driving my car while filled with churning bad feelings, I made myself go through a small meditation on rising above the false self. Immediately a beautiful blue jay feather floated into my open window and landed on my seat. What a gift!

And give yourself gifts. No, not expensive jewelry(though that can be nice) but small reasonable gifts. Take a walk while determining that with every step you will live in the now. Or shut your eyes when you are full of stress, and imagine yourself in your favorite beautiful place of nature. Plan to take a small trip to a park or a museum, or a place you find intriguing and go. Plant your favorite flower or some spinach seeds, and watch them grow. Eat the baby spinach you planted and feel it nurture your body( I did this one).

If you love to sing, put on your most loved music and let ‘er rip. Same for dancing. It does not matter if you aren’t good at it, it is wonderful to allow your body to express itself so kinetically. And if you do it often, I guarantee you will get better at it!

If you are an artist, even a very over scheduled one, give yourself the gift of creating time. Compose your music, paint your canvas, write your novel. Build your dreams in whatever small pieces of time you can grab.

Last, give gifts to others. Smile at the child, the older lady, the person you pass on your walk. Hold the door for the one behind you, grab the can on the high shelf someone can’t reach themselves. Stroke your dog, praise your friend. Compliment the one you know could use it by sharing a wonderful thought you have had of them. These acts can take so little effort, but can be wonderful gifts. And they turn around and make you feel good too.

Coming back to life’s journey, if you can wake up and see your gifts, your path will be heading back to where it is intended. The sunlight will be up ahead, and you will be able to handle the dark of the night with far more assurance. Remember your gifts. Use them. Appreciate them. See them. Give of them.

Sometimes I am brimming with ideas for artworks I want to paint. Often I am not. In our busy lives we sometimes don’t have the time to create, express the ideas swimming around in our heads when we have them; how frustrating to have the time to create and no ideas to work with!

On such days I may organize my completed work, touch up some old work, or just haul out a variety of materials and experiment.

I love experiment day, it is the most fun kind of grown-up art play I can imagine.

On this day I decided to try sand, water and paint. I don’t know where that idea came from, but I enjoy creating new textures to paint on, and wondered what these materials could do.

Outside I dumped sand onto paper, wet it, drew in it with my finger, then dropped concentrated watercolor paint onto it. Then I let it dry, and brushed off the sand.

That was really fun!

(By the way, I kept the colored sand for another future experiment!)

Here’s what one image looked like dry. My own imagination does not process mechanically; it took a facebook viewer to say she saw an automobile in the image. Yep, there was a car.

I researched different types of cars, found an old Cadillac that fit the need. Started sketching it in.

Then painting.

And it became Pink Cadillac.

Fun indeed, and I had painted my first realistic car. That was a challenge I learned from, set up by chance and experimenting.

That is just what I love about experimental approaches. You never know what new idea will be born, what texture or color or form might be created. If you can imagine a unique way to apply paint, why not try it? Nothing to lose, right? And if you find something cool that works for you, share it with me— Please!

I am an art teacher as well as an artist. A recent occurrence in my children’s art class led me back to ponder the term pareidolia. I had made copies of my personal collection of “face tree” images for the children to use as landscape composition subjects. All of the kids in the class could see the face images. They had fun with the subject, even as I reinforced the step by step process of working from background to middle and foreground.

Very interesting to me was that when their parents arrived to take the children home, I realized upon sharing the images with the adults that most of them did not “see” the “faces” in my photographs.

?

Pareidolia is “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist”, according to the World English Dictionary. Seeing faces, animals, recognizable objects in clouds, trees, wallpaper patterns, a pile of clothing. The theory goes that as infants we gravitate toward the human face. The basic arrangement of features gets hard-wired into our brain’s processing center, and we then take that into adulthood. We see the facial features where they are not- to try to make order of the random.

I wonder though why some of us see such images everywhere, and some not at all? Do you see the faces in the following images from my tree collection?

I sure do!

Here’s a painting I had completed of a sycamore tree- probably the tree I love the most for its beautiful bark and majestic form.

As I painted the tree, images popped out all over the bark for me, so I enhanced them to make them easier to see.

I do have fun with my art, as well as the sometimes strange way I perceive the world. How about you? Do you have “pareidolia”? I’d like to hear about what you think and experience about this visual phenomenon.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”. ~ThomasMerton

art muse fb

Overall- what’s the better part of art- the process or the product?

I posed this question on my facebook art page. Thinking about the true state of creative bliss, where you lose time, the art flows, you are one with your creation.

I have friends who are authors and musicians who feel exactly the same way. Then I wondered about the actual creations which can emerge from such a creative session; the joy and pride when you feel the work is good, solid, real.

Which is the best part? Here are some answers from some other artists:

#4 It’s all Mixed Emotions for me ,excitement as I think of an idea or revisit an old one ,then drawing it and doing the initial line work which is the stressful part for me but once it has dried all that is forgotten when the colours come on that’s the fun part ,then painting the linework and detail is the therapy part as one just gets lost for a while then comes the pleasure of doing the final touch ups seeing the end result and being happy with it ,and finally the enormous joy of the moment it sells especially for me as it usually happens when I need it the most oh and also as a buyer of other people’s Art , it is of course the Product ….I see ……….I love …..I buy ( if it is within my budget at the time or have a spot to put it ) at the very least I see and admire it which is also good as an Artist ,because as I say as long as some one sees your work smiles or thinks about it even for a moment then our job as an Artist is done

The Art of Patrcia Allingham CarlsonThis has been an interesting discussion- overall it seems that artists most enjoy the process of creating art more than the end product- though the end product is an big part of the journey. And I guess that is what it is all about- it’s the journey, not the destination. Share your thots-

#5 For me…because I am an artist the process is a journey for me. Starting with an idea and putting that into brush into water then paint and onto paper. Arriving at the end is an exhilarating feeling.

The Art of Patrcia Allingham CarlsonA journey- arduous or smooth, each one a different exploration and all building on what’s been learned from previous ones- what a trip. And if you’re lucky, at end end, a painting child of the heart, right?

#6 I love the process, the finished product is just the results of the wonderful process. With any luck it turns out great as well!

So though we all seem to enjoy the product of our art forms, the vast joy comes from the actual creating process. When you arrive at this state of musedom, it can be one of the most charged and exhilarating of life’s experiences.

Create on!

P

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 103 other followers

About the artist

Throughout Patricia's adult life she has been painting and enjoying presenting images of the world as seen and imagined. The paintings you see these blog are frequently textural, suggesting multiple layers of images through time. Ancient scenes, structures, people from long ago, and other realms weave through many of these paintings.

Art for Sale
My Shops have an assortment of unique contemporary Watercolor and Mixed Media Art Gifts for your Home or Office. These products also make great Gifts for your family and friends.
Please take a look at the on line painting galleries. Contact me if there is a painting that you would like to see as a poster, card, T-Shirt, or other Zazzle product.